“You need to listen to reason, Anna. This is what Connor would want. If the Yanks take Camden, there will be a fight. Not now, but soon. Real soon. I know you’ve heard all about how them fights have been goin’ lately. Shiloh. Sharpsburg. Gettysburg. You don’t want to be here, and you’ll regret stayin’. But you need to think of these kids, Anna. You don’t want ’em to see what’s liable to happen.”
Edith, Baby Hugh, and I stood together, our differences long forgotten. Uncle Willard spoke with compassion, which was unlike him, too. Then he said something even harder to believe.
“Please, Anna.”
She opened the door to the kitchen. “Step inside, Willard.” Her eyes went past him and to us. “You three. To the barn. Milk Lucy. Gather the eggs. Clean things up. Now.” Her tone meant she’d hear no protest, and we knew the conversation that was about to take place was just for adults. No snooping or eavesdropping, unless we wanted to feel Uncle Willard’s razor strop.
* * * * *
They talked a good long time. So long that we had milked the cow, cleaned the stalls—which didn’t take long as we had only the cow since the mules were long gone—even walked around the garden. The rows flowed like ditches, and the sprouts of corn were still green, still growing. We had looked for eggs, but found none after having collected a handful earlier. Leaving the pail of milk in the barn, we stayed away from the cabin.
Finally Mama’s voice called us to the front of our home, where Uncle Willard was talking to Max. Dread filled my heart and almost turned my stomach, but my uncle’s face was a scowl while Mama grinned.
Another Yankee victory, I thought.
“Willard’s bound for Magnolia,” Mama said. “So give him a hug and a kiss goodbye. We will see you again,” she said. “Won’t we?”
“In better times, I pray,” he said, and he kneeled to accept the hug and kiss on his cheek from Edith. My twin backed away, and I shoved Baby Hugh forward.
Uncle Willard hugged him, felt another quick peck on the cheek, and, as my kid brother backed away, my uncle pulled him closer in an embrace. “I own too many slaves,” he said. “That’s how come I don’t wear the gray, boy. Maybe I should’ve joined up anyhow, but that’s spilt milk. But I ain’t no coward like Billy Ray’s daddy.”
“Of course, you aren’t,” Mama and Edith said at the same time.
“Willard,” Mama added, “you’ve been very good to us. Connor couldn’t have asked for a better brother.”
He rose, tousling Baby Hugh’s hair, and stepped toward me, saying over his shoulder to Mama: “Connor might have some argument to that statement, Anna.” He stopped in front of me, and held out his hand. “You’re too big now, Travis, for a hug and a kiss. Reckon a handshake’s more in line.” And he offered his hand.
His grip hurt, though I know it was unintentional. Then something came over me. Tears welled in my eyes. I pulled myself to my father’s brother’s chest, and wrapped my arms around him, and smelled the tobacco, the rain. He hugged me back, then stepped away, cursing the rain and wind for putting something in his eye.
Whatever had irritated his eye, he brushed away, and reached into his waistcoat, pulling out more Arkansas script. This time, he didn’t sneak it, but held it out for Mama. “Another offerin’,” he said, smiling thinly, “for that tub of lard y’all call a preacher.”
“Thank you, Willard,” Mama said, and took the banknotes.
“It don’t have to go to the collection plate, Anna,” he said. “It could go to some groceries … some clothes.”
“It might just do that.” Mama smiled. But we all knew she wouldn’t spend it on our family. Not even for coffee.
“You got the head of a mule. Like always. I warned Connor about you.” Uncle Willard reached over, and pulled Mama close, kissed the top of her head, then cleared his throat, hurried into the back of the carriage, cursing the slave for not leaving fast enough.
Waving, we watched the carriage all the way down the lane, then headed up the steps and into our home. Two hours passed before we remembered the milk we had left in the barn.
* * * * *
“What did the Reverend White say?” I asked after supper.
Mama smiled. “He understood. Soldiers stopped by his cabin, too. He said if they hadn’t stolen Betsy from us, they would have made off with her from his place.” She patted the pocket in her apron where she had stashed Uncle Willard’s latest contribution to the meeting house. “Besides, we have tithed more than most of his parishioners. This might be enough to help him buy another.”
“Why don’t you buy something, Mama?” I asked.
Her head shook.
“For your birthday.”
“No,” her lips mouthed.
“Not even coffee?” Edith asked.
“I don’t think you could find coffee between Little Rock and Shreveport,” she said.
“But we ain’t got hardly nothing to eat,” Baby Hugh said.
“I think you need to spend another hour with your Reader,” Mama told him. “Your grammar is atrocious.”
“But ….”
“No buts, young man. All of you should study some more before bedtime. But don’t fret. It is, as Willard always said, darkest before the dawn.”
* * * * *
It grew darker.
Over the next few days, after studies and chores, Edith, Baby Hugh, and I would walk up the lane to the road. The ditch was flooding, and we had to make sure our kid brother didn’t do something foolish like jump in and drown. We’d stand there, or sit on a log, letting Baby Hugh splash his bare feet in a puddle, and watch the convoy. The exodus. The retreat.
Oxen or mules pulled wagons through the quagmire, deepening and widening the ruts, leaving Camden, heading southwest toward Washington. Maybe Magnolia. Perhaps even Texas. Some noticed us, yet they never waved, barely even acknowledged us. Women in bonnets or straw hats dabbed their eyes. Men focused on the teams pulling the wagons. The children, even those we knew, merely looked at us. Perhaps they’d nod in our direction, but more often they just looked away.
“Do they hate us?” Baby Hugh asked after Hank Kroger, the mercantile owner’s ten-year-old grandson, sat on the tailgate of a heavily loaded farm wagon and just shook his head as his family rode by.
“No,” Edith said.
“Do they hate Mama? ’Cause she’s a Yankee?”
“She’s not a Yankee,” I said. “And they don’t hate her, either.”
“Why don’t they say nothing then? Hank and me’s friends.”
I drew a deep breath, trying to think of an answer, a reason.
“They’re sad.” Edith had found the words. “That’s all. They’re just sad. Leaving their homes. Not knowing if they’ll ever come back.”
“Even Uncle Willard said goodbye,” Baby Hugh said.
“That’s different,” Edith said. “He’s family.”
“But they’s friends. Don’t that mean nothing?”
We couldn’t answer. We watched the Kroger wagon round the bend and disappear, then turned to stare at the next passers-by, this one a couple—a white-haired man and a middle-aged woman—trudging through the mud, pulling a pack mule behind them. I didn’t recognize them.
“I hate the Yankees,” Baby Hugh said. He sniffed, and I put my arm around his shoulder, and pulled him close.
* * * * *
Even darker.
It had started out as a steady progression. Wagons, carts, people on horseback, many on foot. Since Camden was a port city on the Ouachita River, I figured most of the wealthiest ones had fled the city via steamboat, although where they could go, where they could find a port city not controlled by the Union Army, I didn’t know. Now, the flood had stopped. Even the water levels in the ditch had lowered.
We had been sitting by the road for two hours, and had not seen anything other than
a water snake gliding with the current in the ditch.
“Maybe everybody’s gone?” Baby Hugh said.
“I don’t think everybody’s left Camden,” Edith said. She sounded like she was trying to convince herself.
Suddenly we heard the noise. It didn’t come from Camden, but from the west. I rose, shielded the sun with my hand against my forehead, and stared. A carriage rounded the bend, pulled by two gray mares. The whip cracked. The horses ran faster, the big wheels at the rear of the wagon spraying mud behind them.
“It’s Miss Mary!” Edith said.
“Driving like a crazy woman,” I said.
“Maybe Yankees are after her,” Baby Hugh said.
Yet no one was behind her. Baby Hugh began waving, but Miss Mary didn’t even see us. She pulled hard on the lines, slowing the two mares, their eyes wide with fright, gray coats already lathered. “Turn!” she yelled at the horses. “Turn!” She punctuated the command with a curse, leaning hard to her right, pulling the lines tighter, and the horses moved, the buggy tilted, and Edith screamed, fearing the buggy would flip, catapulting Miss Mary into the pines. Somehow, it righted itself. Miss Mary swore again, the whip slashed, and grays, carriage, and Miss Mary Frederick moved like lightning down the lane to our home.
We were running after her, but I stopped long enough to make sure no blue-coated soldiers were indeed chasing her.
* * * * *
I caught up with Edith and Baby Hugh, passed them, and reached the yard just as Miss Mary began screaming at Mama, who tentatively came down the steps. Miss Mary raised the whip in her hand. She had not come to converse in French with Mama.
“I hided him good!” Miss Mary yelled. “Good, I tell you! I hided him like he’s never been whupped before.” Her hair was a mess. Mud stained her white dress. Her eyes seemed wilder than those of her horses.
“Who?” Mama asked. “What are you talking about, Mary? What’s wrong?”
Edith and Baby Hugh slowed their running as they neared me. They kept their distance from our neighbor with the whip, who seemed crazy. Mama stayed clear of Miss Mary. So did I.
“Mowbray!” Miss Mary turned around, as if she expected to find her servant. She flipped the whip against her leg. “The miserable darkie. I whipped the skin off his back. And he run away. Run away. The black bas—”
“You whipped Mowbray?” Mama stared at Miss Mary as if she had never seen her before. Well, she hadn’t. None of us had ever seen her this way. “Because he ran away?”
“No!” Miss Mary cried, as she flung the whip toward the carriage, missing, but hitting the nearest gray, which took a few nervous steps before Mama walked over and grabbed the harness. She rubbed the horse, trying to steady it, but kept her eyes on our neighbor. Then she moved to the other mare, trying to keep her calm.
“No,” Miss Mary said. “He run off after I whipped him.”
“Why?” Mama signaled me with her eyes to come over to the team, and once I had the harness tight in my hand and was rubbing the nearest gray’s neck, whispering soft words, she inched her way toward Miss Mary, who was walking back and forth in the mud. That’s when I noticed another peculiar thing about her.
Like Baby Hugh, Miss Mary was barefoot.
Maybe Uncle Willard had been right all along. That sweet old lady was crazy.
“Why did you beat him?”
“I whipped him till I was worn out,” she said.
“But why?”
“Because the South is losing, Anna Louella! Because the Yankees will soon be in Washington County. By thunder, they probably already are. And soon they’ll be in Camden. They’ll destroy my beautiful home. Leave it in ashes. They’ll … they’ll … oh, it’s just so horrible.”
“But Mowbray ….”
“The Yankees killed my brother. Poor Charles. Yankees murdered him. I whipped Mowbray for Charles. Whipped him till I was worn out. Hided him good. Good, I tell you!”
Mama had reached her. “Mary, Charles fell at Murfreesboro. That was more than a year ago.”
Almost immediately, Mary collapsed into Mama’s arms, and they fell to their knees in the mud. Edith and Baby Hugh ran up to them. I led the mares and carriage away, hitching the team to the post near the well.
“Go on,” Mama told my siblings. “Go on. Just leave us alone for a spell.”
“But, Mama,” Edith said. “Where shall we go?”
“I don’t care!” There was such fury in Mama’s voice that Edith staggered back. She ran, crying, to the barn, Baby Hugh right behind her.
I just watched. Watched Mama rise, not even knocking the mud off her dress, her shoes. She helped Miss Mary to her feet, led her up the steps, moved toward the kitchen. Maybe I should have gone with my sister and brother, but, instead, I just walked up the lane. I turned toward Camden and followed the Pike until I turned off onto the path that led to Papa’s sawmill.
It was my escape. Or had been. Now I saw the barrels still filled with sawdust, barrels that would never be delivered to Miss Mary’s. I looked at the acorns. I looked at the squirrels, and the blue jays. Into the shed, I stepped, and found the burlap sack, which I pulled off the shelf. I carried it and the cigar box into the mill, found an old log to sit on, and withdrew the box from the sack.
Slowly I opened the box, and pulled out the writing tablet. I turned the cover, saw what I had written, which wasn’t much. Hadn’t even thought of any stories, had hardly played musketeers or Confederate spies. I hadn’t even played mumblety-peg or checkers with Baby Hugh or Edith.
I found the pencil in my hand, read the title I had written. Aloud, I said, “The Spring of Hope,” then laughed bitterly, and stared up at the hole in the ceiling, at the pines, the oak that had crashed through part of the roof, at the darkened sky.
The pencil went to work. I drew a line through the title and wrote something that seemed more fitting. After a moment, I lowered tablet, box, sack, dropped the pencil, pulled up my knees, and buried my head in my arms, rocking and crying, crying and rocking.
Finally I dammed those tears, swearing I would never cry again, that I would never write again. I thought about tearing up my story or book or whatever it was I had written.
I looked down, blinked away the tears, and read: The Spring of Hope.
Beneath that, the new title: Poison Spring.
Chapter Ten
Full dark had descended. It was another gloomy evening, and Miss Mary was gone by the time I walked back home in a misting rain. After drying off with the towel over the wash basin, I stepped into the warmth of the kitchen. Well, physically it felt warm, but I remained chilled by everything that had happened earlier that day. There were no greetings, little eye contact. Mama stood over the table, dishing out boiled carrots and cornbread onto our supper plates.
Back before Papa had marched off to war, Mama had always put the food in dishes, and brought those to the table to be passed around. Now she merely emptied what food she had cooked onto plates. There would be no second helpings. We didn’t have enough food. Even the cornbread appeared spartan. When I tasted it, I knew we must be out of salt now, too.
She had a plate set for me. I reckon she knew that I’d come home. Edith and Baby Hugh glanced at me, their faces blank, and I slid into my chair without saying a word. In fact, nobody said anything for the longest spell. Mama placed the pot from the carrots in the sink, wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, and returned to the table. Usually she said a blessing before every meal. Even when Papa had been home, Mama always led the prayers. This time, she bowed her head, gripping the back of her chair, and my siblings and I bent our heads, closed our eyes, and waited.
Outside, the wind moaned, and thunder rolled in the distance. Or was that cannon? Whatever, it seemed far, far away. Inside, silence remained, pressing us with its enormity.
After a while, I heard a sigh, then the scraping of the c
hair legs over the wood. My eyes opened to find Mama sitting in a chair, shoulders slumped. She placed her elbows on the table—something she always scolded us not to do—and buried her face in her hands. For a moment, I thought she was crying, but she never made a sound.
“Mama?” Edith timidly inquired.
The hands dropped to the table, and her head shook. There was no plate before her. It was set by the sink, no food on it.
“I’m sorry,” Mama said. She turned toward Edith. “I’m sorry I yelled.”
“It’s all right, Mama,” Edith said, and Baby Hugh echoed the statement.
“No, it isn’t.” Her head shook again, harder this time, and she looked at the ceiling as if speaking to the Almighty. “The whole world has gone mad.” A heavy sigh escaped her, and she turned toward Edith, then me. “I should have sent you to Magnolia with Willard.”
“No, Mama,” Edith and I blurted out in unison.
The silence returned, and I could not bear that. Not after today.
“How is …?” I swallowed. “How is Miss Mary?”
Mama shrugged. “As well as could be expected,” she said after a moment’s thought. “Mary’s nerves have always been tightly wound. They just got unwound, I expect. As the world unravels around us.”
“Why did she come here?” Edith asked.
This time, Mama’s smile seemed genuine. “I am … we are her friends.”
Edith’s head dropped. She stirred her carrots with her spoon, but did not eat.
“Did she really whip Mowbray?” Baby Hugh asked.
“I imagine she did.”
“Did he really run away?”
Mama’s head bobbed.
“I liked Mowbray,” Baby Hugh said. “He didn’t have no hair.”
“Any hair,” Mama corrected, still smiling.
“One time, he even let me rub the top of his noggin.” Baby Hugh grinned at the memory. “It squeaked.”
This brought a slight laugh from everyone at the table, but mine lasted shorter than any of the others’. I remembered that day, old Mowbray laughing so hard he toppled off the doorstep, and Baby Hugh staring at his hand that had elicited the squeak as if it were some kind of magician’s wand. And I remembered Papa, leaning back in his chair, laughing the hardest of everyone there.
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